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Is GW we gearing up for a new edition of Inquisitor?

Started by Inquisitor_Snarf, May 11, 2018, 07:22:41 PM

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Inquisitor_Snarf

I have been watching the Product releases and rumours for a while and I think we are approaching the release of a new edition of Inquisitor. I could be wrong but hoping not.

Inquisitor characters have been re-cast in 28mm scale:
Captain Artemis and Eisenhorn have been published. Additionally the components to make characters from the whole Inquisitor roster and beyond are available. Advances in the scalping/moulding/plastic technologies in the last +10 years makes conversions easier to pull of and much more vibrant. Alos the quality and detail of even simple troop units have made leaps and bounds

Specialist games are starting to be published again:
Necormunda is out and thriving, the same with Blood Bowl and Shadespire (Mordheim equivalent), Adeptus Titanicus (epic 40k soft launch) is inbound this year, Battlefleet Gothic remake is heavily rumoured. Of course Space Hulk has seen many releases. The only remakes/interpretations not produced or in production of the Specialist games line are Warmaster and Inquisitor.
When I started the hobby as a kid, at the back of the GW I visited was the specialist games rack. Most of their shelf space was dedicated to Inquisitor. I do not know if this was a common experience or not. But if it was, it would be very odd NOT to give a game with such prominence a second shot while revamping other systems.

Rouge Trader and the already filled niche:
We have an upcoming Kill Team release to cover skirmish combat, we have Necromunda that covers skirmish combat, Wwat is Rouge Trader doing? From recent screenshots it does not appear to be a grid based movement system so it fits right in with KT and N. Is it an extension of the N or KT system? If so why exclude that information from the trailer? What will make this system so that it will be put out with 'competing' games in the same niche? Lots of interesting questions, that to me, hopefully point to it being something radically different from KT and N. Even if its just a co-launch supplement to KT, it would still add a host of thematic models to the 28mm range.

The perfect time for a narrative game:
8th edition is out and the 40k lore has progressed. Underpinning all that we have a 'new' Games Workshop that seems to have a healthier focus on the players and the game itself. This would be a perfect time to re-release Inquisitor. With GW designing more light weight systems, a rule heavy yet narrative focused game would be perfect to balance out the roster. It would also be rather unique in the current gaming sphere if the narrative focus is maintained. Additionally (and to me more importantly) it gives a chance for GW to make very powerful units (True-marines for example) with little worry about tweaking for balance as well as expand the original line of units to cover most if not all the factions in 40k to come capacity. This expanding list of units was just beginning when GW shifted focus way from Inquisitor.

We will see if my hunch has some merit this weekend during Warhammer Fest 2018. Multiple seminars being hosted by the specialist game division are being held. We could get some great tidbits or a full on announcement (Rouge Trader maybe?).

What do you all think? Will we see a revival of our beloved game? If not 2018, when?

MarcoSkoll

#1
Quote from: Inquisitor_Snarf on May 11, 2018, 07:22:41 PMThe only remakes/interpretations not produced or in production of the Specialist games line are Warmaster and Inquisitor.
You're forgetting Mordheim.

~~~~~

Personally, I don't think we're seeing GW gear up for a new edition of Inquisitor, at least not any time soon.

As far as the new "Rogue Trader" game, the leak is all wrong for a Specialist Design Studio release - the SDS is very open compared to other GW departments, and we've known what they're planning months in advance, long before we see any pictures of models.
SDS stuff is usually first seen as concept art photographed at a seminar.

As what I've seen is promotional pictures (presumably from a WD), this speaks more of a "normal GW" boxed game - something with no long term support. That's not to say that these won't be based on Specialist Games rules, as Shadow War Armageddon falls into this category - and is clearly based on Necromunda.

~~~~~

As far as the long term, Inquisitor has several problems when it comes to re-releasing it. To pick out some of the larger ones:

1) It is wildly different to anything else that Games Workshop sell.
You only have to look at many of the early reviews and the people wandering around calling it GW's worst ruleset to see of how many people completely got the wrong end of the stick.

A player base who expects GW's games to be at least ostensibly competitive is not a great target audience.

2) It can't be covered with a self contained box (like Betrayal at Calth) or made to cover all factions (like Shadow War), so a lot of players will ignore it... or ruin it.
Inquisitor is mostly Imperium centric, and even then most of the archetypes from the main WH40K game are not suitable as regular characters.

3) One of the unique selling points was it being a 54mm game.
This was one of the big original draws of the game - and those multi-part metals made sense when the 28mm range was  factions with maybe their core troops and main transport vehicle in plastic (if they were lucky), but everything else in one or two piece metals.

However, it makes no sense now, and that kills a USP of the game.

~~~~~

We also know that the SDS team are trying to roll a lot of Inquisimunda into Newcromunda with things like the Venator Warband rules in the recent WD, and have plans to include some possible non-combat interactions (e.g. threats/persuasion) into later supplements.
This is going to move a lot onto the ground that Inquisitor would fill.

My guess is that if an Inquisitor reboot happens at all, it will be way down the priority list, possibly even behind completely new Specialist Games...

... and honestly, I won't be torn if it stays there. Although I recently wittered on my blog about what creativity the team could get out of Inquisitor (they've been doing well with Necromunda recently), I also pointed out the sheer likelihood that a relaunch of the game would involve trying to make the game broader in appeal and thus destroy its unique flavour.

Quote(Rouge Trader maybe?)
Damn those inexplicably wealthy makeup salesmen and their nefarious nemeses...
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

TheNephew

I think MacroSkull's covered it pretty thoroughly, but to chime in too - I don't see GW ever coming back to Inquisitor as Inquisitor.

They might write some extra RP-lite-diet-lite rules (more like guidelines) for use with Necromunda/SWAG/Kill Team, but I think the closest we're going to get is rules and the occasional release for less-standard gangs.

The most salient point for me is that there's no reason to ever go back to 54mm, which was really what set the game apart.
Without a whole new extremely limiting miniatures range, the game would've swerved immediately into Deathwatch Vs Avatars Vs Daemons when most folks read the "there's no warband creation rules" bit.

The other point, perhaps nearly as important, is that GW have already released a game intended to be less-competitive, with agreed upon warbands and scenario focus, and the community pilloried them for it and uptake was worse than expected even though it was (almost) the only game in town.

mcjomar

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons...

I did hear a rumour (from a guy who talked to a guy who is a GW staffer). So there is a mountain of salt to take with this.

But apparently, there are rumblings about an Inquisitor game. However, it is not 54mm (and never shall it ever be, apparently), and it will hew closer to Inquisimunda style gameplay, at 28mm (or maybe 30-32mm depending on how much scale creep continues by the time of supposed release, which is "Soon tm").

My money says if it happens at all, it won't be until 2019 or 2020, assuming it happens at all. I'm guessing Rogue Trader, Newcromunda, and the new Wrath and Glory rules will be a combined test bed to see what level of interest games away from the battlefields of the 41st millennium will be like (yes I know W&G is primarily still using 40k character/model types).

So, a thing may be happening, but probably not, so don't hold your breath. And it absolutely will not be 54mm.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

MarcoSkoll

Quote from: mcjomar on May 14, 2018, 08:36:07 AMI did hear a rumour (from a guy who talked to a guy who is a GW staffer). So there is a mountain of salt to take with this.
Well, the stuff I mentioned (that the Venator rules are intended to bridge the gap with Inquisimunda, and they are considering some threat/persuasion/etc rules in later supplements) comes direct from Andy Hoare - and as he's head of Specialist Games, very little salt is required.

Given that's not wildly far off the kind of thing you're saying, I suspect what you've heard may be the Chinese Whispers version.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

mcjomar

Entirely possible, yes.

I'm a bit leery of Inquisimunda though, so I don't know if the Venator ruleset would really be for me (not least because the "current" Inquisimunda ruleset only uses acolytes and Interrogators, rather than Inquisitors, and the SWA rules only support Ordo Xenos Inquisitors, and Newcromunda would still have us with Inquisitors using bodged up guns that could fail an ammo roll at any time, which seems odd to me) even with the threat/persuasion stuff.
I'd be looking for something between Newcromunda and IRE Inquisitor, perhaps, but with better support for non-combat stuff (like social rulesets).

So I guess I might live in (appropriately futile for 40k) hope that we might see something closer to an Inquisitor release.
Admittedly the new RT boardgame does raise the hope that an alternative version might give rise to such a game, but that all depends on what the rules/support look like.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

MarcoSkoll

#6
Quote from: mcjomar on May 15, 2018, 08:16:01 AMnot least because the "current" Inquisimunda ruleset only uses acolytes and Interrogators, rather than Inquisitors
I'd say that's largely semantics. Call them an Inquisitor, Interrogator, Acolyte Primus - one way or another they're the head honcho of that cell of agents.

My indifference to Inquisimunda is more that, even with a GM added in, it is at its heart still a system about straight up combat. I'm okay with games like that, but to me they're not a substitute for Inquisitor and its much greater narrative flexibility.

QuoteI'd be looking for something between Newcromunda and IRE Inquisitor, perhaps, but with better support for non-combat stuff (like social rulesets).
I figure the chances of that are basically zero - IRE is almost an an attempt to make Inquisitor more Inquisitory, so while some of the raw concepts could be applied to other games (or were "borrowed" from other games), I'm not sure the motivation would exist to implement most of those features into a hybrid between Necromunda and Inquisitor.

Actually, I'm not even entirely sure that IRE is the Inquisitor I would write if GW approached me with a job offer tomorrow. It's the Inquisitor I wrote for Inquisitor players, I'm not sure it's the one I'd write for GW players in general.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

mcjomar

In any new system, I'd be looking for alternating activations (or something similar) as opposed to IGOUGO. Inquisitor's system isn't bad, but it's also fixed to a degree, and modifiers to Initiative just shuffle things around. I'm not sure what would be the perfect improvement though.

I'd also prefer 2dx or ndx systems with bell-curve probability graphs, rather than the flat 1dx or dxx systems (d66 is a flat probability graph, as is the d100 system in Inquisitor, because in both cases only one die is responsible for 10s, and the other for units).

Bell Curves give us a nice predictable mid-range, with some amount of swing towards the outliers at the ends, which means we can say "this is what happens ordinarily, and this is what happens when the less likely dice rolls occur" etc, which sounds a lot better, at least to me.
Super swingy probability is rapidly becoming something I'm taking issue with, as it can very easily make high skill characters look like complete fools when certain things should be super simple for them, causing unrealistic events to occur.

I'm using https://anydice.com/ to help me on this, admittedly.

Now, the current flat profiles do give us probability for rolls falling above/below certain scores, that's true (the d100 system is explicitly what it says on the tin when it comes to percentage probability of rolls) but it means that for the tens in either the d100 or d6 system, we're reliant on a single dice to pick the result within the given range for above/below.

Anydice caluclation is: output (((d10 * 10)-10) + d10) >60 ) (so d10 times 10 for tens minus 10 because plus d10 for the units so we don't get 110 for example) (for above 60% for example).

In comparison, on a 3d6 system (for example - output 3d6 >15 provides a fail rate of 4.63%), it is inherently extremely unlikely to get above 15 or 16, which means that failure on a roll for a highly competent character would be equally vanishingly unlikely (given that they are rolling against the stat that they are purportedly highly skilled in). Unless, of course, you are aiming to get above 15 in which case success is very unlikely - appropriate for someone with little-to-no prior experience in that stat/field.

This curve of probabilities seems better to me as a competent or highly skilled character is very likely to succeed as is fitting for their character/skills/background, while a low skilled character would not be, and this would make sense, while rolls reliant on a single dice for the tens (or even just a single stat, as in d6 or d20 systems) are inherently very very swingy (due to flat probability graphs), to an almost painful degree. Experiencing this occurrence across multiple games is what has pushed me towards NdX probabilities (where N is greater than 1).

I have yet to compare to dice pool systems, however, so I'll need to collect data on that.


Setting aside my rant/tangent on probabilities, I would want a healthy mix of combat and social play in any Inquisitor (or similar) system/successor. Combat is a heavy dose of fun, but social situations can be fantastically enjoyable, and provide a lot of framework as to what is happening, and why.
Lots of opportunities for puzzles also, but that's more a case of good mission design, so perhaps it would be arguable as to whether or not it would need to be presented in a purely mechanical sense? Given correct stat setups or skill lists I imagine it would be a non-issue for most games.

The rest, after that, is non-mechanical setting/culture/ethos/community/atmosphere based, and has a lot more to do with people and good fiction.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Inquisitor Cerberus

I am in the process of reading The Magos by Mr Abnett and his opening pages say how he was asked to write novels just before the game was released in the past, with a couple of hints in his writing now, about how his books were used to stir up interest before the game came out.  If you have not read it, it is full of short stories then a full one at the end. It also comes with a time line with all of his Inquisitor books plotted on it and how the short stories fit into it.

mcjomar

I'm in the process of reading the main storyline.
It would be nice if this book were to drum up interest for a new edition/game for/about Inquisitor, but any hope I hold is most assuredly futile.
"Heretics are like cockroaches - annoying to find, and even more annoying to kill." - unattrib.

Charax

(No longer} The guy with his name at the bottom of the page

Inquisitor_Snarf

So an update from the KillTeam Announcement:
QuoteWHAT ARE YOU PLANS FOR EXPANDING THE RANGE OF FACTIONS
AND MODELS?
This is just the beginning of Kill Team – it's a fully fledged system we'll be supporting for years
to come, and rest assured that there's loads of cool stuff on the way. Stuff we'll be telling you
about in due course. Speaking of which...

SO, GO ON THEN. WHAT'S KILL TEAM: ROGUE TRADER?
Wouldn't you like to know! If we had to hazard a guess, we'd say it was some kind of expansion
to Kill Team that looked at Rogue Traders. If we tell you anything more, the Inquisition will have
to start executing writers, which tends to lead to delays.
Far be it from us to suggest that Kill Team: Rogue Trader is just one example of how this new
game allows us to explore heretofore unrealised corners of the the 41st Millennium, not to
mention the new factions and models available after launch...

Looks Like I was wrong. But next time...